


Dressing

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Dressing, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Advice on a dressing change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressing

“And that, my dear Nurse Phinney, is how you properly execute a dressing change. That is, if you must use the McGillicuddy method—some do prefer the Strathairn but of course, sauce for the gander, y’now. I must say, I don’t believe even Miss Nightingale could have bettered that and would be proud to see one of her own, in these barbaric Colonial wilds, carrying her Lamp forward, a true Light in the Darkness!” Nurse Hastings declared. Jed barked a laugh, poorly disguised as a cough but Nurse Hastings seemed as untroubled by it as she had been by the lack of need for Light as the summer noonday sun streamed in the large windows or, from what Jed could tell from the next bed over, the pristine whiteness of the bandages she had changed out for Captain Jencks, a truly patient Rhode Islander who clearly shared Mary’s puckish humor today. 

He had caught Mary’s eye upon him after the first exchange with Nurse Hastings. That had seemed a fairly usual affair of Anne inserting herself where she was not needed, but Mary had allowed it, as she often did, to facilitate the smooth running of the ward. She’d commented to him, obliquely, with one quirked eyebrow, “Needs must, Jed, when the devil drives. And oh, she drives,” and left it at that. When Mary had asked, almost sweetly, for Anne to show her how to change a dressing he knew she could manage in her sleep, he wondered what she was about. And when she had fumbled and Captain Jencks had dramatically winced, he knew—Mary was playing.

He hadn’t realized at first she had such a sense of humor. The first weeks at Mansion House she had been the object of mockery, but never its source. She was diligent and earnest and preternaturally serene and slowly the teasing had ebbed as she became another fixture, her pinafore always in place, her braided hair a Minoan labyrinth upon her nape. Then, little by little, her own wit had emerged. It had been missing, entirely, during his withdrawal, at least as far as he was aware; then she had been calm and exhortative by turns, tender at night when he struggled fiercely and was most irritable and hopeless with her. As he recovered, after he had gravely handed her the morphine the night of Aurelia’s surgery, so too had her own humor returned— clever turns of phrase or an impish expression as Anne or Hale held forth, she had even drawn his grins with the skillful swish of her skirts or a balletic pivot between crowded beds. 

Today, she had seen him and gauged his mood quickly and accurately—he was cranky with the heavy Virginia heat, no Chesapeake breeze to relieve him, and frustrated with men whose wounds were healing more slowly than he would like, but there was no great disaster looming and she might jolly him out of his funk. And he knew, when she asked Nurse Hastings, after a swift glance at the willing Captain, if she might be shown just one more time, perhaps from the other side? that she was not only seeking to cheer him to make the hospital work more efficiently, but because she sought his pleasure with her own. He schooled his face to a serious expression and listened again to Private Lewis’s utterly boring cardiac rhythm, the lub-dub a steady harmony to the giddy melody Mary wrote, her own Lied for him.

Late August, 1868

“Jedediah, I need you,” she called to him. He left the small alcove that was intended as the lady’s dressing room and where they had instead set up his desk and shelves, a lamp against the windowless dark, that he might write into the night when the urge took him and then join her in bed with little disturbance. Mary stood across the room in front of one of the windows where the muslin curtain hung still shut against the morning’s brightness. Her back was to him, with only the slightest curve of her breast and hip visible to him—she wore her chemise and pantalets and her hair was netted in its snood, but her dress and petticoats were still laid on the chair next to her.

“Yes, Molly, what is it?” he asked as he walked over to her. His own vest hung loose, unbuttoned, and his cravat was yet to be chosen, but he did not have patients scheduled for some time yet and he had heard something unusual in her voice—petulance? He thought she hadn’t slept well.

“You see, can’t you—I need help, I can’t get the stays closed properly--” she said. He thought she might stamp her foot next. He laid one hand lightly but firmly on her back where the silk stays were, felt the heat of her skin through them. The laces were all neatly strung but she was unable to hook the front.

“So, you need help properly executing a dressing change? Hmm, I can’t think why that is,” and he stole his other hand around her to her round belly, wishing again he could feel the baby move as she said she could. Soon, he hoped, she would put his hand upon her as they lay together and he would feel the flickers and tumbles she had been telling him about since a night a few weeks ago, when she startled him with her gasp. It should be enough for him, he thought, to simply have her in his arms, in his bed, finally his wife and soon a new mother, but he was a greedy man and he had dispensed with any obfuscation of the fact when it came to his Molly.

“Jedediah!” she cried, her mood lightening, but now with the tone she used when he was teasing her and she wasn’t having any of it. “Please, I have calls to make today and I want to get started early, before it gets any hotter. And this new corset, I can’t—I can’t reach all the laces and there are so many of them!” She was flushed now, utterly desirable, and Jed knew what he must do.

“There now, I have re-laced all the laces and ribbons I can find on this. I expect we will find it easier to manage the more you wear it. Shall I help you into the petticoats next or the bodice? I want you home early today, I think you need to rest before Dr. Harris comes for dinner tonight and I know you wanted to finish reading Undine,” he gave her a little stroke on the bit of belly peeping beneath the properly closed stays and reached over to her clothes on the chair. She had not anticipated his alacrity and so her kiss grazed his cheekbone above his beard, her lips soft there, but not as soft as they would have been upon his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my response to May Fic Challenge "dressing." I think the only dressing I left out was for salad :) Please forgive/allow the time jump at the end-- I just couldn't deal with the angst of getting them there today, so I made the authorial decision to plop them in the future already.
> 
> I looked but I couldn't find any specifically named dressings from the 19th century but I feel sure that if there were some, Anne Hastings would know about them. In my internet searches, I did find an elaborate pregnancy corset with all sorts of extra places for lacing to allow for expansion. You can find images on Pinterest if you are intrigued. Undine was a popular 19th century German novella. The Jencks family was well-known in Rhode Island since the 17th-18th century and I;m certain one of them must have fought in the Civil War.


End file.
